I know what you mean. When you first hear Obi-Wan mention the Clone Wars your imagination goes off the scale thinking of some epic past battles of days past. But when we actually get to see them (in the words of C3-PO), “Actually, there’s not much to tell”.
Another thing Lucas could have (re-)learned from Peter Jackson.
They should have had Zahn adapt the Thrawn cycle to the screen and filmed that instead.
Spot on.
Alien - Great movie
Aliens - Best Scifi movie of all time
Aliens 3 - Sucked so hard I have to go back and change the opinions above. I could almost here the director saying “I hate Aliens and will ruin the series. Ha, ha, ha!”
Can somebody please explain to me how the existence of Aliens is logically possible? Ripley didn’t strike me as being self-destructive enough to ever go off-planet again, much less go out looking for one of those mothers.
They appealed to her maternal instinct. :rolleyes:
'Cause, you know, that was such an inescapable part of her character from the first film.
Everyone she’d ever known was dead, including her daughter, and she was never going to work ever again (at least as a pilot) if she didn’t go with them.
You say she wasn’t self-destructive, but it seems to me like she was already destroyed.
The Matrix sequels come the closest. They’re bloated, pretentious, stupid, and unenjoyable, and they handle the characters so poorly that it’s hard to remember what you liked about them in the first movie. I think the low point is the last fight between Neo and Smith. Movies two and three were bad, but this is the battle you’ve been waiting to see, and… it turns into Dragon Ball Z.
The Star Wars prequels take second place, but it’s easier to separate them from the original movies because the original storyline is self contained and because the prequels came out 15 to 20 years later, so unless you’re very young you probably knew the original movies before you saw the new ones.
There is a 70 minute and very funny review of why The Phantom Menace totally failed and ruined Star Wars. Yes it’s long, you watch in in 7 ten minute installments, but it’s actually quite entertaining and worth its length.
One of the things it addresses is the way people now think of the New Hope lightsabre fight as “the lamest one” and why it actually isn’t. (And I agree with him.) Sure the fight choreography was “meh” but the original three movies had a whack of internalized emotional stuff going on during those fights that make them far more interesting than the sterile, perfect, choreography.
In particular he compares about Luke wailing on Vader in a frothing rage in Return vs. Obi-Wan who just saw Qui-Jon get run through just continuing on with the same sterile choreography. It totally diminishes the emotional impact and I was one of the people who though the battle with Darth Maul was boring.
For me it was the last ‘Austin Powers’ movie. It left such a bad taste in my mouth that when one of the others is on, both of which I liked at the time, I flash back to how awful the third one was and I change the channel.
If only it were that easy! But the bad guys in Alien Resurrection refer to what happened on the prison planet as leading to Ripley’s eventual cloning. I’m afraid it’s canon.
The Last Battle made me look back at the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia as a big con. I was 12 at the time.
Resurrection is necessarily part of the same, horrible dream. My own spin is that one technically doesn’t dream during hypersleep, but that Ripley’s revival after Aliens didn’t go well, and she remained in a multi-year coma dreaming horrible sequels. That leaves the door open for a theoretical reboot where she revives, substantially aged (which wouldn’t happen in hypersleep), and has her next adventure with a grown-up Newt.
I can’t say I’ve had any experiences such as the OP is looking for. Crappy sequels usually just make me reject or rationalize around the sequels as in the Alien/Aliens or Star Wars cases. I actually concocted a whole alternative Clone Wars backstory for the Star Wars universe that I used for a role-playing game set in the timeframe of the original trilogy, so I’ve been working to refine my skills at denial.
The Matrix sequels didn’t bug me that much – I never was all that taken with the original, and I didn’t think the sequels were as dreadful as conventional fanboy wisdom would have it. I thought the ending of Revolutions was a bit clunkily handled and obscure, but I’ve seen far worse.
Yeah, this, especially what he did to Susan. As an early teenage girl it’s a proper slap in the face to see that it’s a bad thing to grow up and become a woman (or what dear old C.S. thought an adult woman was like!). Actually I don’t know what was worse, the exclusion or the notion that this was whay I was going to grow into.
This is why I would dearly, dearly love it if someone could secretly erase the memories of the prequels from everyone who watched them. Then they could be remade with someone competent writing the script, and someone more competent directing them.
Oooo, tell me more - please PM me!
Well, she did go back for the cat. 
Actually, they set up her maternal side at the beginning of the movie (to support her bonding to Newt), but in no way is it appealed to to get her to go back. She goes primarily because she’s having constant, horrible nightmares and decides it might help cleanse her psyche. Secondarily because her life on Earth is shit, and everyone she ever knew is dead.
As for the Star Wars prequels, I find it so, so sad that this poster is infinitely more intriguing and poignant than anything in the ~6 hours of actual films.
